The Price of Bread

Yeah, I know, what does that title have to do with traveling? In a way, everything. Because the price of bread is tied into the cost of diesel fuel which fuels the tractors, combines and harvesters on the farms. Diesel is used in the engines of the trucks used to haul the grain to the factories that make the bread, where it is then shipped out by truck, plane, train or ship, all of which use diesel fuel. The cost of which gets passed on to you, the consumer. And yes, our truck uses diesel fuel. It uses the new lower sulfur diesel, but diesel it is. The latest price here in North Carolina is $4.0599 a gallon and we have two fuel tanks that hold a total of 83 gallons, which works out to $337.00 per fill up. Are you gulping yet? Yeah, I thought so.

Nancy asked today if the price of fuel has affected (you will NEVER see me misuse the word "impacted" on this blog) our travels. Yes it has. The rising prices caused us to sit longer at campgrounds before moving on. With the prices this year, we are not only staying as long as we can at as many of our "free" (paid membership parks with annual dues) but we're doing less sightseeing once we arrive. Some of our campgrounds are far from town, as in 40-50 miles round trip far, so our shopping trips are planned more carefully and we try to combine a geocaching/sightseeing/shopping/visiting trip into one if possible. Or we eliminate the geocaching or the sightseeing if the nearest site is miles away. No more 200 mile driving loops in the mountains on a daytrip for us. No more hopping in the truck to look for roadside waterfalls or to search for a quirky statue I saw in Roadside America. A lot of the fun has been taken out of our travels due to rising fuel prices and health care costs.

Will that stop us? No. This summer Denny and I will once again be in Ohio to grow a garden for Denny's father, who will be 97 years old next month. That means we'll be in Ohio for at least five months, which will drive us crazy. That's WAY too long for the two of us to be staying in one place! I will probably try to find some sort of temporary employment to build up our coffers over the summer but once the tomatoes are past their peak, we'll yank everything out of the garden, till it under and hit the road once again. I'm still four years away from receiving my pension, but the whole point of hitting the road fulltime was to enjoy traveling while we had our health so we're doing it. In four years we hope that those extra funds will be sufficient to allow us to once again do more exploring and "just driving" to see what we can see. One way or the other, we'll still be on the road.